by Dr. Rudi Webster

Many years ago, IQ tests were given to some aboriginal children in Australia who were doing poorly in school. As expected, their test scores were quite low and they were labeled as being stupid and intellectually inferior.

A few days ago, I was shocked and distressed to hear similar comments being made about members of the current West Indies cricket team.

When those aboriginal kids and a group of similar-aged white kids were given another test, the results were very different. The children were shown a rectangle that was divided into small squares with a different object in each square and they were asked to view the squares and their contents for a couple of minutes. The objects were then removed and the kids were asked to reassemble the objects in the correct squares. Not surprisingly, the white kids did very poorly and the aboriginal kids did extremely well. Visual cues are more important to the aborigines than they are to the whites because their very survival and growth in the desert depend on their visual memory and visual intelligence.

Dr Ernest Hilaire’s statements made during the panel discussion at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies on the night of 25th May 2010 and reported  in the press thereafter are outrageous, disrespectful and revealing.

Dr Hilaire’s comment that the Windies team is the least educated of all the Test playing teams reveals a misunderstanding of the concept of education and of what it takes to be a successful cricketer.  We only need to cast our memories back to several of our most successful cricketers who may not have been “academic” in the conventional sense, but who were insightful and sharp thinkers and whose ability to understand and think on the theoretical dimension demanded by the game of cricket, earned them their place in the annals of cricket history.

WIPA has noted with interest a number of revelations in Mr. Tony Cozier’s response to WIPA regarding his April 18th, 2010 article headlined “Pollard to sue WICB”.

Mr. Cozier in the said article wrote, “Hunte’s fears would have been validated by a letter from the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) during last month’s series against Zimbabwe concerning Kieron Pollard’s position. The WIPA claimed that Pollard’s selection on the West Indies team meant that he would miss the first two matches of the IPL season for the Mumbai Indians, causing him to lose a portion of his US$750,000 contract. They (WIPA) stated that their lawyers, acting on behalf of Pollard who is not on contract to the WICB, would sue for loss of earnings”.

He went on further in his article, “The WICB confirmed receipt of the letter but is not disclosing where the matter lies at present”.